Five new joint testing and vaccination centres to commence operations on Jun 23

Five new joint testing and vaccination centres (JTVC) will begin operations on Thursday (Jun 23), the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced in a press release on Wednesday (Jun 22).

The five new centres — located in Ang Mo Kio, Bukit Merah, Sengkang, Woodlands and Yishun — will bring the total number of JTVCs to 10.

All five centres will offer both the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty and Moderna/Spikevax COVID-19 vaccines. The Novavax/ Nuvaxovid vaccine will only be available at the Bishan JTVC.

Antigen Rapid Tests (ART), Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests and Pre-event tests (PET) can also be done at the five new JTVCs.

Individuals aged 12 and above may walk into any of the JTVCs to receive their vaccination and booster. The full list of centres can be found on MOH’s website.

MOH also announced that the vaccination centre located at the Raffles City Convention Centre will cease operations on Jul 18. It will continue to accept walk-ins and appointments made via the National Appointment System for vaccination until then.

MOH has also reported a 23 per cent week-on-week increase in COVID-19 community infections largely driven by newer Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.

While the ministry believes that the surge in BA.4 and BA.5 cases is likely to continue due to its high transmissibility, international and local evidence suggest that the two new variants have similar severity to that of earlier Omicron strains.

As a result, the current Safe Management Measures (SMMs) such as mask wearing indoors and Vaccination-Differentiated SMMs for some higher-risk activities will remain unchanged.

The public is also reminded to continue practising individual and social responsibility by self-testing and avoiding social interactions if one has fever, respiratory symptoms or tests positive for COVID-19.

As hospital capacities remain tight, MOH also strongly advises the public to only seek medical treatment at a hospital’s emergency department for serious or life-threatening emergencies. 

Patients with minor ailments are strongly urged to seek medical attention at general practitioner clinics instead.